Graham Stuart
MP for Beverley and Holderness · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way, but he will be aware that there is no plan to ensure that that 2030 target is met. At a time when we have short-term cuts in operational spending, the Secretary of State must feel a certain amount of disappointment that we do not have a firm plan in place, because if the Treasury do…”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Look, we are we are taking 70,000 businesses out of business rates.” Of course I welcome that, but it is inadequate in a high street that is falling and losing.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“And yet he comes forward with something this timid, this pallid and this lacking in inspiration, and gives a speech that entirely aligns with those qualities, and he is met with a near rapturous reception from Labour Members who have had to put up with the two previous Budgets, with their disastrous impact on the UK economy.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman. Coastal communities are losing out, and savers are being hit by a £500 million increase in tax—again, I do not think that has come through clearly. Some Members talk about this being good for pensioners, but it is not.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Business taxes have not gone up by another £60 billion—praise the Lord—but they have gone up by over £2 billion through fiddly measures. On top of that, there is the ever-popular call of, “Let’s attack the banks to feed the Labour Back Benchers,” who are so divorced from economic reality.”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will not give way if the hon. Member will allow me. What is happening to business investment next year? According to the Government’s own figures, it is falling. What is happening to the debt of the nation as a result of today’s Budget, compared with the position earlier in the year?”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
The complete record
5,959 held · 5,855 searchable for Graham Stuart. The searchable lines are below in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 4 of 10.
This is not an official version of UK Parliament proceedings. It reproduces the published record and links to it; the official version is the one UK Parliament publishes.
“I entirely agree with every word my right hon. Friend has said. Perhaps an area where we—the previous Government or this one—have not succeeded is in sufficiently sharing, or narrating and telling the story of, the threat to our UK citizens of suffering the barbarity that the Ukrainians are suffering daily, which would help the Secretary of State and others make the case, in an extremely tough fiscal environment, for the resourcing not only to support Ukraine, but to arm ourselves. Does my right hon. Friend agree with me that it would be good to hear about that from the Minister, because there is still a disconnect between the way my constituents see the world and the way that I, fresh back from Ukraine, see it?”
House of Commons25 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; he is being most generous. While we were in Ukraine we also met the hon. Member for Dudley (Sonia Kumar), who had led a delegation of physiotherapists who were working with the Ukrainians. Another ask that we perhaps did not expect to hear was that, as far as the Ukrainians were concerned, there were not enough British businesses coming out to do business—not so much to do good, but to do business and to integrate our trade. They felt that there was greater commercial engagement from other countries than from the UK, which they saw as a particularly good ally. Could the Minister say whether, through the Department for Business and Trade, we can do more, such as taking more trade delegations, and really lean in to support trade in both directions?”
House of Commons25 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Prime Minister said that the Cabinet Secretary’s integrity should not be questioned and then immediately briefed out that he was going to be sacked, having given him the responsibility of overseeing the handing over of documents that could be detrimental to a Prime Minister so desperate to save his political life that he has already thrown his closest advisers—communications and chief of staff—under a bus. How can we know that there is no link between the very integrity the Prime Minister highlighted and the desire to remove the Cabinet Secretary from a role in which he might be at risk of removing this Prime Minister?”
House of Commons12 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am reassured to hear the Minister’s words, but I am not hearing how what she describes will happen. We have all seen what happens with a larger force. The big cities and metropolitan areas have a political way of pulling resources to them; it is almost like gravity. Something structural is required. The Minister may not have an answer today, but will she consider ways of backing up her hope, to turn it into something on which rural communities in my constituency can rely?”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister is being extremely generous in giving way. I met the chief constable of Humberside last week. As the Minister will know, it is the leading force in the country and has the best results, so local people are concerned about a reorganisation that could be expensive, and could draw resources away from a successful police system. How will those making preparations for these changes engage the chief constable in Humberside and others who are helping to set very high standards now? We do not want those standards diminished in the future.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am extremely grateful. My right hon. Friend is being most generous, and he has barely begun his speech. I must have misheard, because I have listened to so many speeches about law and order from Labour Members, and my right hon. Friend must have misspoken. He has suggested that not only did the last Conservative Government leave a record number of police officers, but overall crime fell by 50%. Have those words ever been issued by the Ministers, or do they try to mislead the public at every opportunity?”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My right hon. Friend will have noted, as I did, that the Minister failed to answer on the “how”. She said that she wishes to ensure that the creation of massive new police organisations does not lead to policing becoming more distant, remote and hard to influence, not least for rural communities, but she could not tell us how it will be done. Does he share my concern that we will end up with a larger, more bureaucratic system that is remote from ordinary people? People in rural East Yorkshire are going to feel far away from decision making.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have never heard someone so passionately misinformed in my life. The Labour Government left a massive, gaping overspend. In other speeches the hon. Gentleman has mentioned the national debt going up under the Conservatives, but we brought it down every year, and we fought and reduced crime as well. Having ensured that the country recovered, we left record levels of police officers and a 50% cut in crime. He puts on this faux outrage, but the lived reality for his communities and mine was an improved service and balanced books.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Gentleman was practically spitting with anger when he talked about the Conservatives’ record of increased numbers of police officers and a halving of crime, but now he “respectfully” makes suggestions to the Minister. Is it his understanding that, as a direct result of the settlement that this Minister has brought to the House, there will be a cut in service level in his deprived communities, making them less safe? Is that his understanding, and if so, perhaps his passion could rise up a little?”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Gentleman may have inadvertently suggested that there was a reduction in police numbers. There was a record number of police officers, the highest in this country’s history, when the Conservatives left power. That number has been reduced—frontline, back office and PCSOs; each and every one of them—by the Policing Minister and the Government opposite. I know that the hon. Gentleman, who is always an honest and straightforward Member of this House, would not want to suggest that the Conservatives left us with reduced numbers, when, in fact, they had increased.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When I met the chief constable of Humberside last week, he talked about Bobbi, an AI tool that is now able to meet 75%, and up to 90%, of queries. Does the hon. Gentleman envisage the desks always being manned, or would a computer or AI-based system be suitable in his view?”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. She is making a powerful speech. As she says, there will be a regressive impact from this police grant settlement, which is going to see higher and higher council tax on low-earning residents in her area, and because of rising costs, reduced policing. That is obviously concerning. I wonder how she is going to take that up with Ministers to try to effect change.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is just that sort of incoherence that is upsetting my constituents. Humberside police force—the finest in the country—has a mayor on the north bank and another mayor on the south bank, so who exactly will be in charge of the police force? We do not know what will replace it. We do not have the detail, and we do not know what it will cost. All we do know from governance reorganisations through the years is that whoever is in charge, they are normally slower, more costly and do not deliver as much as the Government hoped for at the beginning.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“One of the dangers, while the Government are cutting the police—1,300 last year alone, estimated by my police and crime commissioner, and another 4,000 nationally could go next year—is that they come up with this smoke-and-mirrors talk about neighbourhood policing and ask the hon. Gentleman whether he wants to protect that. If an artificial number, set from the centre, leads to the removal of police officers from where they are needed to meet local need, that is not a good thing. I hope that he, as a proper Liberal Democrat, will recognise that local decision making needs to guide this most, and that we need to have a Government who are not playing with smoke and mirrors.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In his powerful speech, the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) talked about the rise in scammers and fraudsters. I am concerned about the fact that Humberside will get a 2.4% funding increase, according to a public announcement by Ministers. The police and crime commissioner has shown that, when costs are taken into account, that represents a 2.9% cut. That is why 1,300 police officers have been cut so far, and it is why another reduction of 4,000 is expected next year. The Minister can go through a carefully curated number of neighbourhood officers, but the overall number is down, and the Government are not being straight with us.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As ever, I am afraid that this Minister gets her facts wrong. Despite that frailty, she is none the less straightforward and pretty outspoken. We get so few direct answers these days, so I look to her to provide them to two questions: are there fewer police officers now than there were when Labour came to power? And were there record numbers at that time? Are those two facts correct or are the Conservatives misleading the House, which we would not want to do?”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Secretary of State has been tremendously generous in giving way. He has also been making his usual barnstorming political knockabout speech, but perhaps he should start to act more like a Secretary of State, because low-income residents of the East Riding, of whom there are many in Beverley and Holderness, are going to have a £200 council tax bombshell. The smallest house is going to be paying £200 more in three years’ time and will have reduced overall funding to support public services after the increase in costs imposed by the Government. That is the reality. The Secretary of State said he wants to focus on need; why has rurality been removed from the category of need, when it is such a real issue?”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is far from my typical habit to get involved in political knockabout, but following that astonishing intervention that showed a total lack of self-awareness, does my hon. Friend remember the now Prime Minister saying that council tax would go up by “not a penny”? This settlement assumes an increase of 5% a year on low-income people in rural East Yorkshire at the same time that core funding is cut. That is a £200 hit for the smallest house in our area, while—as my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) said—very valuable homes in central London seem to pay a fraction of the amount.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A £200,000 house in the East Riding of Yorkshire will be paying between £3,000 and £4,000 in council tax, depending on its 1991 valuation. A £2 million flat in Westminster will be paying £2,000. There is an opportunity to put that right. I know that the hon. Lady is from London and the Secretary of State is from London—it feels to a lot of us out in the provinces that everybody in charge is from London—but this system is so egregious and wrong. Does the Chairman of the Committee not agree that something needs to be done about this? We did not do it in our years in office, but this Government said they would have a fairer system, but it is not fair yet.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Its spokespeople speak about how terrible and regressive it is, and then in government it visits that on people in constituencies across the country. The Government have used the expected 4.99% annual rise in council tax in all their figures to claim that there will be increased spending power. That is based on sticking up tax by 5%, and then another 5%, and then another 5%—it is compounding.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to take part in this debate, which has had a number of distinguished contributions, not least from the hon. Member for Knowsley (Anneliese Midgley). As she rightly said, at a time when the cost of living is biting so much on so many, people really need to feel better off. The hon. Lady also highlighted the regressive nature of council tax, which is why it is so regrettable that this settlement is built on the basis of putting up council tax on everyone. It is exactly what the previous Labour Government did, too; they doubled the level of council tax over their 13 years in office. In contrast, over the 14 years of the Conservative Government, council tax grew only a little more than inflation, as it was held down for many years, although it did go up and down over time. That is the history: Labour puts up council tax.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero is signing up for the most expensive deals imaginable and putting up the price of energy, while the jobs tax—one of the most economically irrational taxes imaginable—taxes jobs and brings in no money, because employers simply employ fewer people. That is what that £26 billion hit on the economy comes down to.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will come to the hon. Gentleman in a while. The impact for those in the cheapest or lowest-value homes in the East Riding—very often people in rural areas, with poorly insulated homes, costly transport and low income—will, by year three, be £200 a year out of already taxed income. That is the reality of what this Labour Government are visiting on poor people in my constituency and other constituencies around the country, while they crow about it being fair. There is nothing fair about it. The local government finance settlement will mean only one thing for families in Beverley and Holderness: higher council tax bills, at a time when every other bill is soaring—thanks, again, to this Government.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There are fewer and fewer opportunities for young people to get on the jobs ladder and, for those at university, to supplement their income while they pile on student debt, which will only go up even more as time goes on. These are not abstract pressures but lived realities, and this settlement will pour on yet more misery. The Prime Minister says that every minute not spent talking about the cost of living is a minute wasted, but warm words do not warm homes.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will come to the hon. Gentleman, but I will make a little more progress first. I know the reality from talking to my constituents. Jenny in Cherry Burton says that she cannot really afford to shop for healthy food as half her money is gone before she even gets home, forcing her to make choices that no family should have to make simply to get through the week. Andrew in Beverley faces rising energy bills, which I have touched on, and rising food prices, all while supporting his two children, who are at university and cannot find part-time work; previously, they would have done, but now they cannot find part-time work because those jobs have tended to disappear.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Government should strengthen communities, not squeeze them, so I ask the Minister: when families are stretched to breaking point, why is this Government’s answer yet another bills hike? In Beverley and Holderness, the only change that this Government appear to deliver is the small change left in people’s pockets after the Chancellor has emptied them.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Government did not put sufficient additional money into social care, and in Beverley and Holderness, with an ageing population and rising adult care needs, that imbalance matters. Instead of funding care properly at source, Ministers shift the cost on to council tax payers—and then they claim that they have fixed it. I saw the real-world cost of squeezed council budgets when I visited Sunk Island last month. On Sunk Island Road and Brick Road, residents endure patch upon patch of repairs that are never truly repaired. They are paying more yet still waiting for lasting fixes. This is the pattern: more tax, less certainty, higher bills, patchwork results.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Council tax is, as many Labour Members have said, regressive. The lower the income, the heavier the burden. The smaller the home, the sharper the hit. At the very moment that household budgets are tightest, this Government tighten them further. Nowhere is that clearer than in social care. In the first Budget since Labour came into office, the Chancellor allocated over £20 billion to health. Why did they not recognise that so many of the problems in the NHS actually come from the failure of funding in social care? It could so easily within the same spending envelope have eased the pressure on the NHS by better funding social care so that to keep those who are ready to leave hospital from occupying the beds that they do—they have for the past few years, and they do today.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I do not remember the specifics of that, but I can say that, whereas the last Labour Government doubled council tax despite it being regressive, that did not happen under the Conservatives, whatever introductions there were. Those taxes were held down, because that is what conservatives do. They recognise that it is better to leave money in the pockets of people to make their own decisions, not take it away from them. Families across the East Riding are now asking a very simple question, because they know that promises do not pay bills. How will this local government finance settlement, and the £200 council tax bombshell that follows it, help them cope? Let us be clear about what is happening: the Chancellor underfunds, councils are squeezed, council tax rises, and families pay.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I would be happy to talk to the hon. Members for St Helens South and Whiston and for Hartlepool (Mr Brash) and others to see where we can make some common ground on having a more rational system, because at the end of all this, the complexity and lack of transparency end up in social failure. As the hon. Lady rightly and passionately says, it is those who are the most vulnerable and the least able who pay the highest price, and whether that is in her part of the world or in mine, that is not acceptable. We have all come here to make it a better place, and one of the things we need to fix is this.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) rightly identified 800 of them—for the constituents in the deprived areas of the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) and in mine, nobody can see the transparency. Perhaps we should look on the Back Benches initially for a cross-party view on building a fairer funding system. There is one more thing, and I do not know why no one has talked about it very much in my 21 years in this place. The fact that a £200,000 house in Beverley pays a lot more council tax than a £2 million flat in central London is absurd, and very rarely does anybody mention it. We need to fix things, but if we cannot fix something as absolutely inexcusable as that—and, collectively, we have not—it is no wonder the public are looking at us so askance.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They are delaying and delaying, and as their political potency weakens, it becomes harder and harder to deliver. It is a bit like the police reorganisation we touched on earlier today. It is unlikely to happen in the dribs and drabs of a Government who are struggling. We need a long-term settlement that is based on need. There is no perfect assessment of that, but what we have is complexity, as we heard in the brilliant speech from the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) on the Lib Dem Benches earlier. The system has elements about how many pubs there are and what some level of cost was in 1991 and all sorts of other things. The truth is that, in this most fundamental set of services—my hon.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the hon. Lady, who always speaks passionately and with deep knowledge of her community. As she says, she does not make unnecessary party political points. The one thing that unites the House, including the Government Front Bench, is a recognition that the funding system is broken. I spent many years campaigning, across different funding pots, on the distribution. Everyone looks at the quantum, but they do not look at the distribution. It is easy to get into a world of complexity, and the number of people who turn up for meetings on distribution gets very small, but it is actually critical. We need a new funding settlement, and how we deliver that, given the political realities, is to go in early and hard. Unfortunately, this Government have not done that.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That takes away any idea of the extent of the relationship—the extent of the relationship is as laid out in that report.”
House of Commons4 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend is right to look at the process, but I do not think that it provides any cover for the Prime Minister’s decision. If the story in the New Statesman today is true, the Prime Minister was directly sent a report that “clearly stated that Mandelson’s relationship with the paedophile continued after his conviction for soliciting a minor for prostitution. It contained links to photographs of Mandelson with the paedophile, and drew particular attention to evidence that Mandelson had stayed at Epstein’s apartment while he was in prison.” Candour has been talked about a lot today. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should hear from the Minister today whether that report in the New Statesman is true and whether the Prime Minister received that report?”
House of Commons4 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does my hon. Friend agree that the Minister needs to tell us at the Dispatch Box whether the New Statesman report today is true—that the Prime Minister was directly told that Mandelson stayed in Epstein’s flat while he was in prison, and therefore that the extent of that relationship was absolutely clear to the Prime Minister when he made the decision to make that appointment? I know—because I spoke to some of them at the time—that so many Labour Members were uncomfortable but felt obliged to go along with it.”
House of Commons4 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech, grounded as it is in the Nolan principles. Does he agree that if the Prime Minister had appointed someone who went on to breach all the Nolan principles to a position as serious as that of ambassador to the United States, that would be a serious issue to deal with, but the fact is that he appointed a person who had already broken all the Nolan principles before his appointment, as well as doing so after it? I think that makes the Prime Minister’s position untenable.”
House of Commons4 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The right hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech. He referred to the speech on factionalism made by his colleague on the Labour Benches, the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon), and made the point that we need an independent inquiry. One of the reasons for that is the number of staff from Labour Together, a factional group within the Labour party, who were appointed to civil service posts directly after the general election, including one—Jess Sargeant—who was appointed to the Cabinet Office’s propriety and constitution group. Labour Front Benchers should not say, “Don’t question the impartiality of the civil service.” They undermined the impartiality of the civil service, and we need an independent inquiry if the public are to know that we will get to the truth.”
House of Commons4 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Government tried to stop the full disclosure of documents today. It was primarily Government Members who identified that and said that they would not put up with it, so it is thanks to them that a manuscript amendment has been tabled. However, there may still be a misunderstanding. The hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) said that the ISC would vet documents before they were released, but that is not my understanding. The Committee will get to see them, however inappropriate it is for them to be published to the whole House. Does my right hon. Friend agree that Ministers must set out the principle that not only should documents be referred to the ISC, but should be released, if the ISC agrees that they are not injurious to our security and should be made public?”
House of Commons4 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does my hon. Friend agree that the Minister should find out—if he does not already know—whether Mandelson was in No. 10 at the time of the last Government reshuffle? Was he involved in the appointment of Ministers on the Treasury Bench? If the Minister can tell us categorically that he was not, that will be a relief to this House.”
House of Commons4 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend may have heard the powerful speech by the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) earlier in the day about factionalism in the Labour party. The Prime Minister not only appointed Peter Mandelson to the post of ambassador knowing, as he declared today, what he knew, but he previously brought him in as a strategic adviser, advocate and planner in the 2024 Labour general election campaign. All Labour Members are tainted by that association with Mandelson, which was brought about by the leader of their party, now the Prime Minister, who knew about this matter at the time. That perhaps has not been picked up on as fully as it should have been in today’s debate.”
House of Commons4 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Further to that last intervention, we need an assurance that we will have urgency. We have seen victims of child abuse in this country let down by a Government who resisted an inquiry but then agreed to it in a big moment. Today could be a moment like that, when the Government appear to give way, but months then pass with nobody appointed to the inquiry. We need to hear from the Minister that the Government will move with speed to ensure that this information comes out.”
House of Commons4 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Before the appointment of Peter Mandelson as our ambassador, he was appointed as a strategic adviser, a consultant, an advocate and a planner for the 2024 Labour party general election campaign. May I suggest that he was appointed—Government Members know this to be true—because he was treacherous, deceitful, a liar and a master manipulator in the political dark arts? That is why the Prime Minister appointed him. There is no defence, is there?”
House of Commons4 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I was not here earlier in the debate, so please forgive me, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman talked about Members being able to back up their assertions. Who was it in the debate who suggested that the Chancellor did not care? I have never heard anyone on the Opposition side of the House saying that she does not care. Whether she is capable of dealing with it is a different matter entirely, but who was it who said she did not care, because I am sure we would all want to take it up with them and tell them to change their line?”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Gentleman is being most generous with his time. I agree with the hon. Member for Harlow (Chris Vince). Does the hon. Member for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes) agree with him that it would be a sign of this Government’s success if we saw fewer food parcels being put out by food banks by the end of this Parliament than we do today?”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Lady is, as ever, showing a powerful oratorical style, but it is so easy when doing that to get one’s facts wrong. Unemployment, I am sure she will recognise, was at a near record low when the Conservatives left office and has risen by more than 20% in the less than two years that Labour has run the country. I know the hon. Lady is careful with the facts and will want to retract the point about unemployment under the Conservatives. Whatever other ills she wants to attribute to us, I do not think she can genuinely attribute that.”
House of Commons3 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Like my right hon. Friend, I am proud of the role that Conservative peers have played in this, but can we also take a moment to pay credit to Back-Bench Labour MPs? I think it is important to note that they are not here. Practically the only Government Member present, scribbling away, is the hon. Member for Rugby (John Slinger), whom I admire a great deal, but who is loyalist to his very core. If he is the only Member prepared to speak up, the truth is that Labour MPs have voted with their feet, and they now agree with my right hon. Friend that this deal has to go.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Minister said that she would address the issue of whether nuclear weapons could go to Diego Garcia, and now she says that she cannot comment. Is that—”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“UKHospitality says that we could be seeing the death of the great British summer job, and even Labour’s own Alan Milburn has warned that there is a long-standing decline in the number of 16 and 17-year-olds getting Saturday jobs. Previous Labour Governments always shoved up youth unemployment, but never before has Labour threatened to destroy the great British summer job. That is much to be regretted, and it is about time that the Government turned around their jobs tax and Employment Rights Bill policies.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In my experience, my neighbour is always a fair and credible person, so will she confirm that youth unemployment reduced over the 14 years that the Conservatives were in government, rather than focusing on some selective period over covid in order to give an entirely partisan and biased view of the statistics? The numbers went down, did they not? The only Government who put up youth unemployment by 45% were the last Labour Government.”
House of Commons28 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗